Ho-Hum

     May has been a ho-hum kind of month for me. I've been productive, but unfortunately, most of the production has not been on my bike. In the last blog, I described my streak of dehydration from long days of trail work on the first hot days of the year. It seems the body is slow to adjust to the first really hot days. I feel that every year, usually in June but it has become hot much earlier this year. After suffering for about four days, I felt my body become more efficient and suddenly all the work was not so tiring. I usually don't have too much in the way of allergies, but all the trimming on the trail and mowing of the yard messed up my sinuses. I fought it off for a few days, but eventually the nighttime drainage turned into an upper respiratory infection. I got it under control quickly, but the effects lasted almost two weeks with a lot of coughing and difficulty breathing. I sounded like a had black lung. That made riding difficult. I've been able to do some rides, but they have been maintenance rides. I was already feeling like I was losing focus with my training plan near the end of April. It's been much worse in May. I dropped two pounds over the past two weeks and seem to have actually improved my endurance, so I guess it was not a complete waste of a month.

     I did get out to the Bells Bend Time Trial #2 in Nashville last Wednesday night. I decided to ride the Merckx class this year. I want to improve my time trialing, but I don't plan to do any time trials this year, so I opted to go without aero bars to prepare for improving my TT power for getting into breakaways. For those of you not familiar with the history of cycling, the class is referred to as "Merckx" because the legendary rider Eddy Merckx set the world hour record on the track before aero equipment was invented. He set it on a simple road bike with drop bars. His record stood until technology allowed for new positions that were far more aerodynamic than the standard road position. For a while, the new records were accepted. Then they were thrown out by the UCI after the UCI deemed the records must be broken by someone riding a bike like Merckx rode. That rule lasted for a long time before it was finally dropped last year. The most recent rule change has made the hour record much more popular again and has boosted time trialing popularity in general. So, the Bells Bend Series features an Open class, where all aero equipment is legal, and a Merckx class, where only a standard road bike with no aero bars can be used.

     I had rough legs that night. The 12-mile course beat me up. I had no legs in warm-up and not much more in the race. I could spin a good speed on the downhills and flat areas, but the climbs killed me. The legs pumped up and got so tight they felt like they would burst. And I was coughing like a smoker. All I could do was watch as Jason Chatham blew my doors off at mile 4 after starting 30 seconds behind me. I still caught and passed my 30-second man and managed to get into a good rhythm despite the lack of legs. I was thinking a good time would be 32:00 without aero bars and I finished with a 31:30, just 40 seconds off my time from the first race I did last year. Not bad for feeling bad. I finished 7th in Merckx.

     The highlight of the night was the starter arguing with me on the start line that my last name was Green, then making me back up two inches just five seconds before my start because I was "up to the line." Not over the line, but up to it. The race is still fun, but it is way more serious than last year. Almost everyone has a TT bike now. I remember when it was weird to see a TT bike. Now it's weird to not have one. It's just like the cyclocross evolution a few years ago. When I first started racing, nobody had a cross bike. Now, nobody races on a mountain bike. I like seeing the sport grow, but it is amazing at how much money people spend on bikes. I mean, do you really need a $6,000 TT bike for the two Cat. 4 TTs you do each year? There are more triathletes participating in the series this year and they are not as friendly as bike racers. There's much less chatter going on before the race now. It makes for some awkward "Hellos," that are followed by silence.

    Last weekend, I planned a big mountain bike weekend. I had intended on doing the Little River Bicycle Tour in Hopkinsville, KY, but it got canceled this year due to lack of volunteers. I picked the worst weather weekend of the Spring to hit the trails. It rained Saturday morning, but Shannon, my Mom and I decided to ride anyway. We all worked too hard on the trail not to ride it. We have blown off the leaves, trimmed the weeds and blown most of it off again to clear the trimming debris. About two miles of the trail were PERFECT! That part may have been in better condition than I have ever seen the trail be in. We rode in the mud and had a good time. I felt terrible again. My legs from my new level of fitness I hit at Roswell and Sevier Park are long gone now. I tried to do an XC effort, but wound up in survival mode about 1/3 of the way through. It didn't help that I was looking around for Shannon and hit a tree about 20 minutes in. That's what I get for trying to lap her. I pushed through the bad feelings and at least got in some good miles even if it was at a much lower intensity than I had hoped for. The trail really benefited from the wet laps. Our trail never gets sloppy, just slick on top. It doesn't rut at all unless there is some freeze-thaw. The trail packs more as it dries and it got drier all afternoon as we rode. We logged some serious laps and really wore in the main line.

     Sunday, I tried again to log more laps, but the weather was against me yet again. It rained around lunch, so I waited for the afternoon to hit the trail. I got in one wet lap before a big storm rolled in. I tried to wait it out, but after 30 minutes of torrential downpour, lightning and strong winds, I called it a day. I could hear trees breaking in the wind as I waited. There was no way I was going back in there with tree tops snapping.

    I finished most of the trimming this week. There are four trees down from that storm that I still need to cut out. My sidekick has been hanging out with me most days. Snoop is getting older and is not excited about going on the trail every day, especially if it's hot. But she does still have those days where she is with me every step of the way all day long.

Snoop

     It has rained a lot lately, causing me to miss a few rides, including this Wednesday's second race of the Music City Crits Series. I'm now 0-2 with making these races. The races were held this week despite the rain, but I chose not to go. I still don't feel 100% from the respiratory infection and did not want to race in the rain. I don't mind a wet course, but the heavy rain really works on your bike. It did not seem worth it to stress all my bearings that much when I did not even feel like racing. It poured the whole Pro/1/2/3 race and the course had to be modified, so I think I made a good decision.

     My other area of production for May continues to be the garden. We have had our fair share of problems this year with seedlings. The ones that survived all the other afflictions and made it into the ground had to contend with a bunch of birds that broke off many of my pepper plants. I wound up having to replant many of them and even go by some plants from the local greenhouse in Pleasant View. The bugs have already been out in force. Usually, I don't have to fight potato bugs and caterpillars until June, but they have been snacking on my plants for two weeks now. Some days all the troubles start to get to me and make me want to scrap the garden, but then I get some reward for my work. So far this year, we have harvested carrots and spinach once, kale twice and are currently getting a steady stream of sugar snap peas, spinach and three different kinds of lettuce.

More irises than last year. Last year,w e only had purple and white flowers. This year, some yellows bloomed too.

Spinach and Romaine lettuce

A row of kale with cucumbers growing around it

Peas

Strawberries

Green beans

Broccoli and cauliflower

     I'm finally getting caught up on my blogs. I think the Roswell and Sevier Park blogs might have been the most detailed blogs I have ever published with all the additional pictures and videos I accumulated. I'm still working on my handlebar cam video from Sunny King, but it will be completed soon. I've added some stuff to both the Sunny King and Cedar Hill Crit. blogs so go check them out if you want to see more. Thanks for reading!